How does PAP2 work without port forwarding?

Posts: 87 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Feb 15, 2005 Posts: 87

I am curious...how is the PAP2 able to work behind a router without manually configuring your router for port forwarding? How are people on the internet able to find you? Does the PAP2 keep an open channel to the Vonage switches?

Thanks!

Posts: 25 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Feb 18, 2005 Posts: 25

The PAP2 is a UPnP device so as long as the router has UPnP enabled, the ports are automatically forwarded to the PAP2.

If UPnP is disabled, the manual of the PAP2 tells you to manually forward the necessary ports to the PAP2.

Edit of UnP to UPnP.

Posts: 87 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Feb 15, 2005 Posts: 87

So would having two PAP2's behind a router screw something up? Will it configure correctly? Or is this not suggested?

I'm speaking theoretical here...no need to have to PAP2's.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 19, 2005 Posts: 6

I am a brand-new Vonage customer, and have a PAP2 behind a Netgear WGR614 router. The router has not had UPnP enabled, yet my service has been fully operational for several days.

I just went and enabled UPnP on the router to see if I get anything showing up in the router's UPnP portmap table.

Posts: 3198 · Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 2:58 pm Post subject:

port forwarding is for people connecting to you. like a web or game server. it's not for outgoing connections. the pap2 establishes the connection with Vonage, not vice versa. therefore, it works.
at least that's how I understand it.

Posts: 227 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Dec 10, 2004 Posts: 227

reebok wrote:

port forwarding is for people connecting to you. like a web or game server. it's not for outgoing connections. the pap2 establishes the connection with Vonage, not vice versa. therefore, it works.
at least that's how I understand it.

John, you are correct...as usual! Smile

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 09, 2005 Posts: 1

<newbie alert> So what about incoming calls? Are you saying that the PAP2 maintains an 'always on' connection to the Vonage servers so that it can receive a connection when there is an inbound call and the phone should ring?

Sorry, I'm still confused on this point and why you don't always need to setup port forwarding... could just be that I need to read-up on UDP...

thanks.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 09, 2005 Posts: 7

The instructions that came with my PAP2 did have me setup multiple port-forwarding rules.

Inbound and outbound are working correctly for me with these rules. Do I not need them?

-Kash

Posts: 10 · Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2005 1:16 pm Post subject:

You do not have to foward any ports unless your service is not working. I have the Cisco 678 modem <---- D-Link Switch <---- 2 PAP2 devices hooked up to 2 ports on the switch. Both systems work just fine no issues at all.

Posts: 482 · Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2005 1:27 pm Post subject:

millieaux wrote:

<newbie alert> So what about incoming calls? Are you saying that the PAP2 maintains an 'always on' connection to the Vonage servers so that it can receive a connection when there is an inbound call and the phone should ring?

Sorry, I'm still confused on this point and why you don't always need to setup port forwarding... could just be that I need to read-up on UDP...

thanks.

Nope, you're not confused, you got it. UPnP allows devices to communicate so that, for example, applications can dynamically request port forwarding...Xbox Live and MSN Messenger come to mind. But that's typically not necessary if the device "calls home" because when that internal request hits the router, it automatically opens the ports for the return traffic. Just like pulling up web pages over HTTP. You didn't have to forward port 80 to your computer because the port was opened from inside your network.